<DIV><P>Marvin Bell is at the peak of his formidable powers. Long recognized as one of America&rsquo;s liveliest poetic in-novators, he has said in a recent interview, "I want to do something beyond convention, beyond accepted levels of skill, beyond the expected, beyond the predictable, beyond the wholly welcome."</P> <P><I>Nightworks </I>is truly beyond the usual fare, and critics have praised it as "a major event," "long overdue,"and "essential." As the definitive collection of Bell&rsquo;s 40-year career, it combines new poems with choice selections from all of his previous books, including the now-infamous voice of the Dead Man:</P> <P><I>I am the poet of skulls without why or wherefore.<BR> I didn&rsquo;t ask to be this or that, one way or another, just a young <BR> man of words. <BR> Words that grew in sandy soil, words that fit scrub trees and<BR> beach grass. <BR> Sentenced to work alone where there is often no one to talk to. <BR> The poetry of skulls demands complicity of the reader, that the<BR> reader put words in the skull&rsquo;s mouth. <BR> The reader must put water and beer in the mouth, and music in the<BR> ears, and fan the air for aromas to enter the nostrils. <BR> The reader must take these lost heads to heart&hellip;<BR> </I>&mdash;from "Skulls"</P> <P>"Marvin Bell&rsquo;s career has been substantial [and] <I>Nightworks </I>reminds us just how distinctive his voice has been all along&mdash;how prophetic, how candid, how rigorously philosophical. He enlarges our understanding of what poetry can do."&mdash;<I>The Georgia Review</I></P> <P><B>Marvin Bell </B>has taught for nearly 40 years at the Iowa Writers&rsquo; Workshop. He is the first and current Poet Laureate of Iowa.</P></DIV>